Engine work on my 1952

Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:17 pm

A few days before Christmas I saw this 1952 Cub in craigslist advertised as 'runs good, smokes bad, needs engine rebuild: with Woods 42 mower'. Only about 35 miles from home so called about it, still for sale, so took my trailer and went to check it out. Good mower and overall pretty fair shape. Made a deal and brought it home.

Unloaded it and drove up to my water spiget and sprayed it down with gunk and washed most of the crud off of it with a pressure washer. Looked a lot better, especially wet....

Then drove it into my basement garage to check the engine out.....

I'll make another post on the engine work. ______________________________-CharlieB

Last edited by CharlieB on Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:19 pm

Looks like a nice project Charlie!

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:22 pm

Looks good Charlie, We look forward to updates.

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:32 pm

Charlie:

Very nice looking Cub and a nice Woods as well. Have fun with that one.

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Thu Jan 24, 2013 9:45 pm

That will make a nice tractor. Other than the engine issue, it looks like it's in good shape.

KT

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Thu Jan 24, 2013 10:13 pm

Thanks for the comments. I don't have much left to do on it to have it running. Here is part of the breakdown. Took off the tank and hood and started stripping in down to remove the head.....

Here it is with head removed. All head bolts came out fine....Quite a bit of carbon build-up, but maybe not too horrible. ....

I got the rod bearings loose and pistons out and they were all still standard. Rings were really worn but pistons checked out standard size. Going to clean it up and put rings and rod bearings back standard. I ordered them from NAPA.

I used these to measure...

______________________________CharlieB

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Fri Jan 25, 2013 5:20 am

CharlieB wrote:

I got the rod bearings loose and pistons out and they were all still standard. Rings were really worn but pistons checked out standard size. Going to clean it up and put rings and rod bearings back standard.

You lucked out. To me it looks like that tractor wasn’t worked that hard….just a grass cutter. You saved a lot of money on that engine rebuild and got a good tractor on top of it.

One thing to check is the PTO shaft.See if it's tight;the downward pressure from the mower belt sometimes wears out the inner PTO shaft bushing.

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Fri Jan 25, 2013 8:42 am

Looks like you got a great hone and go engine....sweet!!!

What ring end gap did you have with the worn rings? Just curious as the loboy was up near 0.100...

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:47 am

I will check the PTO shaft and bushing. Shifts OK but there has been a slight oil seepage. The transmission gears all look very good with clean fluid. Clutch works OK and looks to be an almost new throwout bearing.

The ring end gap on the worn rings was about 1/4 inch when I checked them back inside the cylinders. Almost no compression to insert them and very weak. I had to open the bottom oil rings slightly to touch the cylinder wall. The pistons measured to new specks.

One of the pistons with old rings.

And here I am honing the cylinders walls.......

_______________________________________Charles

__________________________

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:55 am

it has had the rings replaced at lest one time, be sure to check your ring gap, I feel it will need boring, I hope i am wrong Boss

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Fri Jan 25, 2013 11:47 am

what did the bore measure? 1/2 inch down from the top perpendicular to the crank is the most important measure of the condition of the bore.

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Fri Jan 25, 2013 12:34 pm

Remember the cylinder walls do iin't wear evenly so if you put new rings in worn bores you must make sure the ends of the rings don't touch each other at any time through the piston travel. If they do you can break a ring or stick a piston.

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Fri Jan 25, 2013 1:52 pm

Those were some really worn rings. Hopefully you can sneak it back together without having to rebore. The published wear limits are pretty strict but you can bend them a little if you need to...a few thousandths at a time....

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Fri Jan 25, 2013 3:20 pm

Thanks for all the advise. The rings seemed to have worn more than the cylinders. There was a slick glaze on the cylinder walls but honed out pretty good. When I checked with new rings the end gap measured .020 and less at different areas. And I agree that it could have used a teardawn and complete overhaul but really don't want to get into that large of a job with it right now. So going to re-assemble with standard and see how it works out. A question---The rings were really worn thin. Could someone have put in some low quality rings that would have worn like that? I was amazed that the new rings from NAPA were so much stiffer and strong feeling than the old rings.

________________________________CharlieB

Re: Engine work on my 1952

Fri Jan 25, 2013 3:25 pm

It looks like it was run hot or dirty job of rebuilding, like it was sanded while running [ from not cleaning the cyl. when assembled ] , good luck with the re ring